The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Fly Wheel(clutch cover) inter-change ability?

In my quest for the t-5 swap, I started to purchase the parts need to complete the job. trans, pressure plate, clutch disc, throw out bearing and thrust bearing. Did many searches and PM's to others here and gathered my info and parts and headed out to the garage.

Just for the fun of it I compared the two clutch disks, the RCF-4201 and the one that was behind my engine. looked identical except for the splines, I thought. Wrong. it turns out that the new disc has a larger diameter than the old one by about a 1/2 inch. 1/4 per side. It matched up nicely to the reman PP that I got a great deal on, but wait.

now comparing the reman PP to the old... it too is larger. bolt holes are too far apart to bolt up to the fly wheel. It seems that some were along the line there was a change. 54 -62 have the same PP and clutch disc. While the 47-53 have the smaller PP and disc. So I guess my question is will the fly wheels interchange with out messing up the balance of the motor.
And would it be easier to just change the new disc to a Vega and try to locate the correct PP,which is very hard to find a good deal on by the way. Or keep the larger pp and disc and change the fly wheel. If I change the fly wheel will I have to change the starter too? Just trying to get things together with out too much swapping of parts.

If you have room on the original flywheel & in the clutch housing to accomodate the larger pressure plate, you can have the flywheel re-drilled to accept it. Most automotive machine shops can do that for you.
Doug

You will have to change the starter too, unless you have the later flywheel machined to accept the earlier ring gear.